


Imperfect Imitation

by Lyssandra_Med



Series: One-Shot [22]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bellamione Cult War, Dark Hermione Granger, Discord: Bellamione Cult, F/F, Identity Death, One Shot, Polyjuice Potion, Team Furbae
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-27
Updated: 2019-09-27
Packaged: 2020-10-29 11:33:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20795966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lyssandra_Med/pseuds/Lyssandra_Med
Summary: The potion should have worn off by now.It should have bloody worn off!





	Imperfect Imitation

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [A Home at the End of the World](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8631826) by [ludling](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ludling/pseuds/ludling). 

> Very light editing, messing with style. Very much inspired by discussion on the Bellamione Discord, as well as the lovely chapter 10 of ludling's "A Home at the End of the World".

The potion should have worn off by now.

_ It should have bloody worn off! _

She knew it the minute the water passed straight on through her skin, the leaks and trails running rivulets down her clothes to leave it dry and clear. 

Ronald's disguise had fled, his features morphing back to their rightful shape as his orange-red mop of hair swishing around while he stared in wonder and surprise. 

_ She should have known.  _

She'd read about the damned things, knew intimately how they worked and why they'd been invented, their history and use was spread as far and wide as the goblins could throw it in an effort to thwart would be thieves.

But she hadn't known, or maybe had forgotten, her brain so warped and squished that rational thought had fled. 

"Oh no," she voiced, her words a hushed whisper that drowned beneath the squealing and vibrations of the mine cart that they rode. 

Polyjuice was a wonderful thing; metamorph abilities in a bottle, one hair, a length of brewing, and voila-

You were who you were, no more. 

Had it been ease that let her brew it back in second year? Was the potion so simple even a thirteen year old could do it? Or had she even then been light years ahead of her classmates, mind forging ahead onto topics and skills that were precipitous and difficult even for graduates? 

Who knew, not her, because for Merlins own sake the potion  _ hadn't  _ failed. 

She'd brewed it wrong, surely that was the case, or something in the woman was making issues with her science; a quirk of physiology or genetics that precluded failure where it had never happened before. 

Well… 

Okay, alright, she'd failed the first time 'round as well, but in her defense that was no fault of her potioneering or skill, only the fault of being too eager to begin and seeing what she'd wanted instead of what was there. 

Polyjuice was forbidden from practical study, no one knew how specifically it worked except the Unspeakables and they certainly weren't talking, and now here she was as a front row attendant to magic gone awry. 

But the waterfall must have done  _ something  _ to her looks, maybe washed away a freckle or torn away a color judging by the half shocked and half mad looks that Harry was shooting her, barely disengaging except for the three times that he needed to reapply his Imperio. 

She'd really have to speak with him when all this was said and done, he was willing to use an unforgivable, had been since the DOM, and still he couldn't keep it up for more than five minutes even when his life (and theirs) depended on it. 

_ 'I'll show him how to do it,'  _ a black thought rumbled around her mind, the corner of her lip twitching spasmodically as it entered, sat, then fled. 

More minutes, more rollicking, another Imperio and Ronald losing his lunch, that's all it took and then they were arriving, running, ringing bells and pulling open vaults until nothing stood between them besides a goblin and the gold. 

Well, except the bloody curse threaded into each and every object; the cups, galleons, knives and even fucking portraits all turning molten hot while refusing to melt, each duplicating on and on as Harry rushed forward to retrieve their prize while she and Ronald stood at the back with an hand on Griphook and the other goblin dead at their feet. 

Wait-

Hermione's brain was a jumbled mess of confusion and worry but that shouldn't have precluded her noticing the moment of death or the goblins body now lying face up in everlasting peace. 

Oh well. 

She laughed as adrenaline began pumping through her body, some unknown condition or proclivity winding up her spine and smothering her brain. She hitched and halted while stepping forward to touch a galleon, just a single one, as Ronald tried to hold her back and to the side, attempting and failing to keep her away and safe from the cavalcade of ruinous treasure. 

One touch was all it took, each duplication disappearing in a puff of dust and multicolored grit, the burning pieces disappearing as the room was washed with a cold breeze that frosted their fingers and chilled their nose.

Harry fell; a consequence of the height he'd stupidly climbed to, and she fought back an unknown snarl that rumbled deep within her chest. 

One second, a flick of her wand, and the broken bone shoving through his shin was healed and mended, the burns on his skin vanishing into the paleness of his body. 

\---

"We need to talk," he'd tried to stop her as they left, the massive dragon cowering its head beneath a wing as she cut through iron and climbed aboard. 

"Later," one word as she flipped black tresses marred with her own curls behind an ear, left hand grabbing painfully onto a shooting bit of spine, Ronald's arms trying to wrap around her waist and bunch in her skirts as they took off towards the ceiling. 

Nothing stopped them, nothing could, dragons in flight and rage were ever so hard to tame and redirect, damage rolling off their backs like water on an oil slick. 

Left, then right, higher and higher until charms and shivers were necessary as she guided the sun-dazzled beast as well she could towards an unknown location that called between her bones. 

It still hadn't worn off; now three hours past its due as well as two hours past the magic of the goblin enforced security, her features slowly shifting and de-aging but not gone completely through and through. 

** _'Drop them,' _ ** something whispered,  ** _'Look how far they'll fall, such a sweet painting on the ground-' _ **

She ran a hand through curls and skirts, trying to wipe off whatever was preying at her mind, fear washing away in a bout of laughter at her predicament. 

\---

Andromeda was worried, hurt and torn inside, her husband dead beneath the ground and daughter who knew where on secret missions from a dead man. 

There was little to say beyond how she  _ hated  _ her life at present, stuck in her home with nothing and no one until she finally went-

** _Knock Knock Knock _ **

The doorknob twisted gently in her left hand, right holding her wand and pointing at the body standing outside, words tumbling past her lips as terror bloomed under her skin. 

"Bell-" 

"No," the girl said simply, her voice a mix of the husk her sister swore in and the softness of a child, quiet yet determined while she was left to stare and grasp at straws. 

Three bodies shoved by her; two boys of red and black, green and blue, singed and bone weary as she led them to the parlor, long dead portraits staring at the oddity of motion and company. 

"How." 

"Polyjuice." 

_ ‘Of course.’ _

"... You really fucked up." 

"Not really," Red spoke up, his hands wrapped tightly around a golden cup shrouded with cloth. 

The crickets deafened themselves after that, her eyes aware of what that was, whose it was, the exact date and time and moment of it entering  _ Her _ possession coming back to mind. 

She wasn’t paid nearly enough to deal with this madness.

_ ‘It beats being alone.’ _

“You're a healer, right? Then  _ heal _ her,” Red spoke again, his face a mash of anger and disgust as his eyes slid over the girl, woman,  _ thing _ she had become.

“There’s nothing to heal. St. Mungo’s would tell you the same.” The words were acrid coming from her mouth, same as the bite from a glass of gin that had been sitting untouched for hours.

Black shifted his eyes,  _ ‘Green is a better name,’ _ something hard and wicked sparking between the darkness in their center. “What do you mean?”

“You had an incident with Polyjuice, didn’t you girl?” She chose to ignore Green’s huff of displeasure at being ignored, addressing the elephant in the room instead.

“Once,” Black spoke out (and really that’s all she was now, something tarnished and doused in ash until she was one and the same), “Five years ago. A cat hair-”

“No need,” she waved it off and bit back a grimace as liquor shot down her throat, “You’re stuck like that. Let me guess; you’re the wonderful idiots who robbed Gringotts.”

“How’d you know about that?” Red was shifting back and forth on the seat as he replied, hands clenching and clenching around air and brittle bone.

“Hard to keep news of a fucking dragon erupting from the roof from spreading out. Even if  _ He,” _ they winced as if she’d said the name itself, “Owns the communication lines, it’ll still spread about by word of mouth. Like I said though, there’s no helping you. I’ve only seen this happen once before and the girl went mad instead of ever going back to normal.”

_ ‘Killed herself in the end, but they don’t need to know that.’ _

“So there’s nothing,” Black’s voice was weary and resigned, feigned in such a way that only the subtle tell of her sister’s eyes could give it away, “Nothing you can do, nothing to be done. I’m stuck.”

“Yes. Polyjuice won’t work on you anymore, you’re not a Metamorphmagus, and standard Transfig could be deadly. You should have thought of the consequences-”

“Let’s go,” Black stood into a lurch that was hobbled by her now too long skirts, “She’s said all she can.”

Andromeda watched them leave with a smile playing at her lips, something dark and weary but  _ alive _ for the first time since dear Theodore had left. No matter what happened, no matter who won, this at least would be interesting to bear out.

\---

Bellatrix was unamused by the creature wearing some version of her face, the scar she’d worn when she left the Manor now erased into pale skin that mimicked her own and a face staring back at her that she hadn’t seen in years.

**_‘Break her,’_** came the order, her Master amused where she was not and intrigued by how she’d managed to remain alive so long; her body now a replica that stood to gain him should things turn out.

She tried her best-

\---

-shooting spells and traps that rolled around her feet as Hermione -  _ Bella  _ \- (something) dodged as fast as she could. There was a throbbing in her temple and whispers in her mind that were not her own, never her own, but present all along and overly attached now that her brain was somewhere in the middle, leaning more towards  _ Her _ than herself.

Fight them -  _ save them  _ -

Leave them -  _ join them  _ -

Each thought was rolling and striking and soon enough the turmoil in her mind was too much for her to handle, too much for her to evade; something dark and rough gripping around her ankle to drag her backwards down the stonework until the dungeons and muffled sounds of fighting were all that remained to her.

“How,” a voice gruffed as hands materialized from the darkness to wrap around her throat, light shining from a wand rolling around on the ground to send them both into twisting shadows and stark relief.

“A mistake,” her words were hard to release, choked as they were in warm palms and the new sound it had grown into.

Warmth rubbed against her cheek, the length of a tongue that was wet and hot as the witch above tasted the witch below, their hearts both hammering in ribcages too brittle to sustain themselves.

There was something faintly humorous about the Copy meeting the Original and soon enough a cackle had begun to build beneath her chest in waves and a crescendo that topped out at the same moment that Bellatrix fell into her own, the body above her standing to pull her along, her hand reaching inside her modified cloak to pull on her wand, unleash a green flash-

\---

When Harry won the victory was bittersweet; the bodies laying all around them seeming to gloat and glower at the triumphant Boy-Who-Returned, their glassy stares and stolen voices swirling around the Victors.

She knew she couldn’t be sure of it but each pair of still living eyes seemed to land on her for moments, seconds, the myriad of colors and shades all piercing her with something angry and disheartening. 

_ ‘Should have known,’ _ her mind badgered as she left the ruined Hall,  _ ‘They see  _ ** _her_ ** _ , not you.’ _

\---

It took three weeks for someone to ask her what exactly she had done, why she wore clothing so reminiscent of the Witch, why her curls were black as ebony and brown eyes much the same.

She waved them away and shut the door of her parents' home in their face just as, “An accident,” tumbled out her mouth as easily as  _ ‘Hello!’ _

“Who wassit’,” the sleeping voice so similar to her own spoke up from upon the couch, thin spread of covers shifting to reveal long stretches of red and white from scars both old and new, some her own and some before, a leg rattling against the table as the witch stirred with nerves and anxiety aflame.

“Nothing,” she returned and set her nails into a thigh, a hiss of pleasure, or maybe pain, sprinting from the woman’s lungs. “We should have been Narcissus-”

“We’re broken, it never would have stuck.”

Her nails pressed harder to wring a black look of fervent anger from the woman’s eyes, “Still it would have been appropriate.”

“Tell that to Cissa.”

“I think she’d kill me on sight.”

“Then tell it to Andromeda, you’re so fond of her nowadays,” those eyes sparked venom as she spoke, something akin to anger running undercurrent to her words.

She smiled at that, little broken pieces of her finally settled mind crashing and digging against one another as she stared, “Andy just finds it interesting.”

“She found a mudblood interesting, that’s not saying much for her mind or hobbies.”

“You found one interesting too-”

“No,” the woman leaned up to wrap a hand around her throat, leaning back the next moment to pull her along and down into her lap, “No I find  _ myself _ interesting, I’ve always loved my reflection.”

“Well then,” sharp tongue licked at warm lips, “Shall we?”

**Author's Note:**

> Like Bellamione? https://discord.gg/pcfMU4F come on in and join the server!


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